Developer: kaleidoscube
Publisher: Mixtvision
Reviewed on: PC
Code Received.
A Juggler’s Tale is a side scrolling narrative platformer in the vein of LIMBO and Little Nightmares. Although the attitude is much more fairytale than existential horror, the gameplay is very similar. You’ll be pushing boxes, flipping switches, and throwing rocks as you make your way across a picturesque countryside. If it weren’t for some tedious puzzles and vague signposting, A Juggler’s Tale would have completely won me over with it’s charm and beauty.
You play as Abby who is a circus performer, juggler, and prisoner of the cruel circus master. In a harrowing escape attempt aided by your bear pal Urs, you break out of your cage and flee your life of captivity. The odd catch here, though, is that you and everyone else are actually marionette puppets, limbs dangling from the sky on strings and all. A rhyming voice narrating your every move almost as if he’s retelling a story.
In truth, the narrator is the one in charge. Setting the scenes, creating the conflicts, and telling the story. You’re just another one of his puppets. The marionette angle plays into many of the puzzles you must over come. Your strings will get caught on objects that you must move in order to pass. It’s a clever diegetic mechanic that lasts for the first third of the game. The rest sees you being pursued by bounty hunters in a stealthy game of cat and mouse. All the while the narrator turns from a benevolent overseer into an angry antagonist, manipulating the world around you in order to put obstacles in your path.
In all honestly many of the more complex puzzles required a bit too much trial and error for my taste. Enemy cones of vision during some stealth sequences were questionable, resulting in some slow moving puzzles needing to repeated over and over. To add insult to injury, many of these fail states were followed up by the same lines being repeated over and over by the narrator. For a game so short and simple, it sure pushed a lot my buttons. And as good as the narrator was, I only needed to hear his lines once. The final sequence of encounters was an exceptional headscratcher, one that really sucked the excitement out of the story.
On the other hand, A Juggler’s Tale is a lovely game to look at and listen to; the art, narration, and story telling are all top notch. It’s unfortunate then that you are often distracted from that beauty by some questionable puzzle design and mechanics. Ultimately, I think the charm does outweigh the blemishes, but just by an inch. I was satisfied with how A Juggler’s Tale wrapped up, and believe it tells a compelling and family friendly story. But just like little Abby, don’t expect to be cut loose into this world without stumbling a little along the way.
